Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2019
Images from the Internet
Woodstock FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the
Fabled Garden
Written by Thomas Edward Harkins
Backbeat Books
360 pages, 2019
When we were both Grad students at New York
University in the 1990s, Thomas Harkins and I would have some deep discussions
about music filled with humor and respect for each other's tastes. Oh, they could be very
different, with me being the punker and him the grunge-lovin’ hippie into Classic
Rock. And yet, we found enough common ground in musical acts like the Who and
Melanie to keep our conversations lively.
The FAQ series by Backbeat is a
bit of a misnomer in that it is not as the acronym states “Frequently Asked
Questions,” but rather more as the phonetic sounding of FAQ / Facts. Like
Harkins’ previous book from 2016, Pearl Jam FAQ: All That’s Left to Know
About Seattle’s Most Enduring Band (co-written with Bernard M. Corbett), he
takes both a deep look through a fans eyes, without being too sentimental, yet
manages to keep it quite personal at the same time. Feel the love, and light your
candle in the rain.
In his introduction, Harkins
rightfully states that Woodstock “is considered by many to have been the
definitive sociocultural event of the 1960s. It is also widely considered the
most famous concert of all time.” In my opinion, the Monterrey Music Festival
was the prologue and Altamont the conclusion, with Woodstock being the body of
the text, if you’ll pardon a print-era analogy.
Harkins takes a topic that has been covered
extensively and wisely uses a few formulas that work quite well. For example,
he starts with how the 3 Days Festival of Music and Art came to fruition, and
then discusses each and every band and/or musician who played over those days.
In most of other missives I’ve read that are dedicated to the sometimes grueling
weekend, there is a ton written about the main players (e.g., Janis, Jimi,
and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), or they are mentioned right off the bat, and
some of the lesser knowns (Quill, the Keef Hartley Band, the Incredible String
Band, etc.) tend to fall by the wayside or as a footnote. Here, Harkins thoughtfully goes chronologically
through each and every one who performed. Nice touch, as some of the bands that
didn’t make the cut of the film or initial LPs are the ones I am less
familiar with and want to learn about more thoroughly.
Each of the chapters referring to the
bands are usually broken into three separate sections (with rare exceptions,
such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young who each get a prelude). The leadup to Woodstock (i.e., the
history of the band and its members) is subtitled “As the Seeds Were Sown,” the
Festival experience for that artist or group is “In the Garden,” and the post-experience
“The Harvest Reaped.” Each subtitle is followed by a relative quip, such as “Airplanes,
Starships, and a Side of Hot Tuna” for Jefferson Airplane’s later period.
What’s also impressive is that inasmuch
as Harkins is a fan, he also is not afraid to shy away from disruptive personalities,
nor is he reluctant to discuss substance abuses (like, was there anyone
there who wasn’t completely zonked on stage, other than probably Ravi Shankar?).
It’s in the third, post-concert section where this is especially true, with too many
of those falling into obscurity due to their own self-destructive devices and dependencies (or
of their management pulling power plays with the filmmakers during the festival,
for example).
Commented on – though almost not as an
exact focus – in this book is the sheer amount of songs about Woodstock by
the artists that were there (and in Joni Mitchell’s case, who arguably wrote what
has become the definitive number about it, she was absent). For me, more than “Woodstock”
with it’s iconic refrain “By the time we got to Woodstock / We were half a
million strong,” it was Melanie (Safka) and her “Candles in the Rain / Lay Down”
that speaks to me about it (“We all had caught the same disease / And we all
sang a song of peace”). Another example that Harkins mentions is Creedence
Clearwater Revival’s (CCR) B-side “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” which the author
describes as “at least, in part, a commentary to the band’s experiences at
Woodstock.”
Despite the number of pages, most bands
are given a few and concise sheets to sum up their histories and experiences, which is fine,
because as I stated, there has been a lot written about that period,
including by performers in their autobiographies, and not all of them match the
actual history of certain events, which Harkins also wisely addresses. Sometimes
it’s easy to tell when the author is excited about a particular band as there
will be a bit more about them, such as with the Grateful Dead; I made a note that
“Lots of post-Woodstock Dead by a Dead-icated Dead Head” (most pictures of
Harkins is of him wearing a tie-dye shirt…). It’s understandable to get excited
about one’s heroes, and that is a flag worth waving.
 |
| The author |
I do have to admit that I don’t always
agree with some of Harkins conclusions, such as when he mentions Joplin's truly soulful
cover of the Bee Gees’ ‘To Love Somebody’ "which, even under these less than
ideal circumstances, added a dimension of emotion that was lacking in the 1967
pop original.” While I am certainly no fan of the Bee Gees’ output from “Jive
Takin’” onward, I think their early material is very moving even in it's pop music skin. But differences of
opinion are part of what makes music so visceral for us, so personal, and what
lead to our interesting conversations about it.
The final chapter deals with the
aftermath of the Woodstock Festival, including the films and follow-up concerts
that were Woodstock-centric (e.g., anniversaries). Harkins is correct to say
that part of the lasting legacy of the weekend was the film that followed, more
so I believe more than the three-record soundtrack that was released at first
(there have been ever expanded versions of the concert that have been circulated
since). One testament to this book is that after finishing it, it inspired me to seek out other media sources
and find videos of the performances and spent some time with those.
The book is thoroughly researched, and
there is lots of information for those of us who just don’t have the time (or
inkling) to read the mass amounts of tomes written about the subject. This is a beautifully
concise snapshot full of excitement about a topic of love and scholarly fanship.
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